


Home Truths

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:50:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warnings:  Language, brief Weasleycest (non-integral to the storyline), Character death, near death experience.<br/>Summary: Ron had not expected to die on the eve of his thirty-first birthday, nor had he expected death to be so familiar. But eventually, it all makes sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Truths

  
** Home Truths **

There were two options, and Ron tried to stay calm in the face of them.

The first was that he was dead. That thought made his throat tighten and his pulse quicken because he was only one day short of thirty-one, and really, thirty-one was far too young to die after everything he'd lived through as a teenager. The second was slightly more calming, and that was that he was simply dreaming, and he could probably wake up if he really tried.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” he chanted to himself, screwing his eyes up tightly and balling his fists. He could feel his nails digging into his palms and wondered, if indeed he _was_ dead, if he would be able to really feel such a thing.  
“You haven't changed, have you?”

The voice made his eyes flew open; Ron hadn't heard that voice for thirteen years, and the speaker was most definitely dead. Slowly pushing himself to sitting, Ron looked up stocky legs clad in jeans; he found a t-shirt over a slightly pudgy belly and then he hit the face, and nearly threw up.

Fred was smirking down at him and slowly began putting his hands together, in a mocking clap for Ron's dimness.

“What the fuck?” Ron choked, hardly able to breathe. Fred looked exactly the same way that he had when he had died, except for some odd feathery wings which stuck out behind each of his broad shoulders. “Are you an angel?” Ron couldn't think of anything more ridiculous.  
“Oh, these?” Fred reached back and flicked one of the feathered appendages. “Nah. Thought I'd put 'em on for comedic effect, and from your face, I've still got it.” He winked and his lips curled into the devilish grin which Ron had missed every day since the battle.  
“What's going on?” he asked weakly, slumping where he sat.

Physically, he felt fine, his body strong and his vision clear. Inside there was nothing out of the ordinary, except for a tugging sadness which had been caused by the man in front of him.

“Am I dead?” he asked glumly, forcing himself to look up into Fred's face, even though it sent chills down his spine to do so.  
“You're not alive.” Fred shrugged unhelpfully.  
“Shit!” Ron leapt to his feet and put his face in his hands. “Oh Merlin, I'm so fucking dead, aren't I?”  
“Calm down.” The older redhead sounded bored; when Ron looked he was working some dirt out from beneath a fingernail.  
“I'm older than you,” Ron breathed. “I'm thirty-one and you're still twenty-one.”  
“And you look every one of your thirty-one years and I still look fucking awesome,” Fred bargained, throwing out his hands.

Ron flushed and looked away.

“And you're still intimidated by me, aren't you? Even though I'm dead and I can't hurt you any more.”  
“Why not?” Ron asked, despite his hurt.

Fred walked towards him and stopped dead ahead. One freckled finger reached out and Ron gasped as it sank straight through the cheek which Fred had made to stroke.

“I can't hurt you any more,” Fred said simply. “No magic. No physical strength.”  
“It was always the words anyway,” Ron pointed out.  
“Awh, sorry Ronniekins. But you needed someone to toughen you up. Bill was too good, Charlie loved you too much, Perce was too boring... that really left it to me and George to prepare you for the likes of Malfoy at school. We taught you how to fight.”

Ron considered than and had to concede that his brother -or his brother's ghost- was right.

“I guess,” he confirmed, and looked at his feet. “Please tell me what's happened?”  
“Do you remember what you were doing this evening?” Fred asked, crossing his arms over his chest in the way that he always had when he was going to prevent Ron from having something in his youth.  
“I was working,” Ron thought back. “We were finally moving in on the resurgence ring we found in the North.”  
“Do you remember what happened?”

Ron paused. “No. I don't remember anything after entering the building.”  
“Probably a good thing.” Fred grimaced at him. “Wouldn't do much for your delicate ego to know.”  
“I've changed,” Ron said hotly.  
“Ooh, gonna get all 'you don't know me, man' on me now, Ronniekins? Funny thing about being dead -you're not really gone. Not until it's time.”  
“What?” Ron asked.

Fred smiled at him and shook his head. “Not the time. But I know all about you, Ron, and the things you've done and what you've been getting up to. I know you're still molten soft in the centre and that chocolate frogs are still your favourite. I know you've got my frog card under your pillow.”  
“Fuck,” Ron muttered, his face flaming with embarrassment.  
“It's sweet -I thought you hated me, nice to know I'm missed.” Fred laughed and pulled a face at him. “So are you ready?”  
“Ready to what, die?” Ron yelped. “I don't want to die. I want to wake up! Now!”

He shouted the last word and looked around, as if he expected somebody to hear and do something about it. Fred laughed again.

“I don't suppose you'd trust me if I asked, would you?” Fred asked finally, reaching up to scratch at his head. “I know you have issues with trust after what I did to you.”  
“I don't have issues with trust!” Ron cried indignantly.  
“Sure, sure,” Fred dismissed with a wave of his hand. “But just trust me. My job is to show you the things you're missing, if that makes any sense.”  
“None at all.”

Fred shrugged and made an uncaring sound. “At the end of this, you'll be so head-fucked you won't know which way is up, I wouldn't worry.”  
“Fred...” Ron hated the weakness of his voice. “Am I really going to die?”

Finally, a sober look passed over Fred's jovial face. “That's not something I can tell you.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because that's not part of my job.”  
“Are you going to wear those wings all the time? They're freaking me out.”  
“Should have added the halo,” Fred muttered to himself. “Would have been better.”  
“Take them off?” Ron pleaded. “I don't need any reminders of the fact that you're dead than I already have, thanks.”

When he finished, the room spun around them and Ron regretted having not paid it any more attention; he was sure that later on he would want to remember it. When the space settled again, however, he was forced to swallow hard. He was in the corridor again as it crumbled around them. Fred was dead on the floor. Percy was sobbing over him and Harry was tugging at the older man's shoulders, trying to pull him off Fred's body.

“Bloody good death, that,” Fred said proudly. “So dramatic. Not as good as Dumbledore's dive off the tower, I admit, but...” He grinned. “Pretty good, don't you think?”  
“That was the worst moment of my life.” Ron felt sick. “How can you joke about it?”  
“I'm dead,” Fred answered simply. “And you've never told anybody how you felt that night, have you?”  
“Harry and Hermione saw.”  
“But did you ever actually say to someone that it was the worst night of your life?” Fred coaxed. “That you thought that it should have been you, that you should have died in place of me?”  
“How do you know that?!” Ron asked, horrified.  
“I know things,” Fred said calmly. “I probably know a few things that you don't.”

Ron surveyed the scene and looked at the tears streaming down his own face in the past.

“I'm an ugly bastard when I cry,” he declared. “And Merlin, so is Perce. And... Harry.”

He breathed Harry's name. He didn't remember Harry crying that night. He didn't remember the way that the tears had dripped as quickly from his best friend's chin as they had dripped from his own, and his brother's.

“Why am I seeing this?” Ron shook his head to try and get rid of the images.  
“Because this was an important night for you. The first night you experienced loss.”  
“It wasn't,” Ron protested. “I knew what loss was.”  
“But you'd never felt it like this before. Never lost what you considered a part of you.”

Ron didn't say anything further, not wanting to admit that Fred was actually right.

“Okay, time to move on, before you start blubbering,” his brother declared. Ron closed his eyes as the scene before them shifted again; it felt very much like Harry's descriptions of the pensieve he had used to view Snape's memories.

“Funny you should mention old Snape,” Fred commented.  
“I didn't.”  
“You were thinking about him, and look, there he is.”

Ron followed the point of Fred's finger and looked. Severus Snape was wearing a thick black cloak and leaning heavily on a walking stick.

“This is before-”  
“Before you bonked him, yes,” Fred said calmly. “We'll talk more about that later.”

Ron hated the apparent all-knowing mind of his dead brother at that moment. There were only two people that knew of the sexual relations that had taken place: one was himself, and the other was Severus Snape. It had been drunken, a fumble in hot sheets which had led to more, and a deafening silence the morning after. They had not spoken or sought each other out, since.

“He didn't have the stick when we...”  
“Yeah, because it's just wrong to fuck an invalid,” Fred taunted. “Anyway. Do you know where we are? I fit right in with the old back warmers here...” He wiggled his wings.

Ron looked around and found himself in a graveyard. A church stood next to them, towering up above. The air was soft and clean around them, flowers were blooming in the greenery around the graves.

“Spring,” Ron commented.  
“Good boy, you've finally learnt the different seasons.”  
“Cock off, Fred.”

Fred stifled his laugh and Ron couldn't help the tug at the corner of his own mouth which hinted at a smile.

“Godric's Hollow,” Ron said finally, when the urge to laugh had gone. “We're in the graveyard at Godric's Hollow. Harry brought me here, because I wanted to see... I wasn't with them when they came...”  
“And you stood here and felt guilty for it,” Fred supplied. “Because you'd left them.”  
“I still feel guilty for it,” Ron said without thinking, and then blushed again.

His attention was caught by Snape reaching out and putting his hand on one of the graves. His fingers curled around the stone and gripped it, hard, his fingernails bleaching white with the pressure.

“He's saying goodbye,” Fred whispered. “To her. Harry's mum. Lily. He's never been here before.”  
“He never came when he was working for Dumbledore?”  
“No. But he's here now, and he's saying goodbye.”  
“So why am I seeing this one?”  
“Figure it out for yourself.”  
“There's no bad blood between Snape and me. We fucked. It was good. But... there's nothing to say goodbye to, there.”  
“Maybe it's not about Snape. Maybe he's just here because of the connection with you. Maybe there's something else you needed to see.”

Ron stared around, thinking hard; his mind, as on so many occasions, let him down, however, and he was forced to turn back to Fred and shrug.

“Idiot,” Fred sighed. “The graveyard. Guilt. This graveyard is the pinnacle of your guilt for you leaving during the war. You won't let yourself get over allowing Harry to make this trip with just one friend by his side. You feel that you should have been on the other side, holding his hand, supporting him. You're afraid that makes him love Hermione more than you, because she was here.”

Staggered, Ron stared dumbly back.

“You look constipated,” Fred informed him. “Come on, lots to see, lots to do.”  
“Wait,” Ron called, as his brother started away. “Wait.”

Narrowing his eyes, Ron watched Snape, who had turned and was walking towards him, his stick thudding along the grass. His head was bowed and tears dripped down his face. His eyelashes were almost lit up by the sparkle of tears caught there.

“And yeah, you're still attracted to him,” Fred shouted to him. “Get a move on.”

Ron had no more chance to look because the scene began to change again, and he closed his eyes to keep the motion induced nausea away. He nearly moaned when the first thing that he heard was yet more tears; this time, however, they were clearly female.

When he dared to open his eyes, Ron found himself in a very familiar setting -his old sitting room. He saw the familiar furniture and smelt the comforting scent, a scent which was made of him and made of Hermione, and mixed together to make their home. He had never thought to smell it again after he had moved out.

Hermione herself was sat on their second-hand sofa, her face awash with tears. By her side sat Ginny, who had one hand on her shoulder and was keeping up a steady flow of clean tissues from the box on her lap.

“I don't want to see this,” Ron said stiffly. “I can't.”

He forced some wildness into his expression, hoping that Fred might take pity on his alarm and fear.

“No can do, Ronniekins. I'm not choosing all this. You are.”  
“I'm not choosing anything-”

He was cut off by Hermione's tremulous voice. She snorted slightly as she dabbed at her eyes. “I mean... I'm glad that he told me. I don't want him to be unhappy. I don't want him to live a lie. I just want him to love me, Ginny. Why doesn't he love me?”  
“Because he likes men,” Ginny said softly, even though the question hadn't really needed an answer. “I don't think Ron's any better off than you. I think he's as distraught as you are because leaving you means change, and a new way of life... and he's always been a creature of habit.”  
“I know...” Hermione sniffled, her tears subsiding a little as she thought. “I'm going to miss him so much. He won't be here any more to do the things we do every week -Friday night dinner. Saturday morning shopping. Sunday night sex.”

Ginny made a face which Fred laughed at, but Ron nearly broke inside at the pain in Hermione's voice.

“But he deserves to be happy, and so do I. I wouldn't have been happy finding out later, finding out that he'd been lying to me.”

Ginny's arm wrapped around her shoulders. “You have every right to be angry, Hermione. Don't let your rational head take away what you're entitled to at the moment.”  
“Oh, I've done angry.” Hermione waved a hand. “I smashed his Order of Merlin up with a hexing curse last night.”

Ginny actually gasped.

“I know,” Hermione said guiltily, biting her lip.  
“She told me that it got thrown away accidentally,” Ron whispered, hurt bubbling in his chest.  
“He'll be so hurt when he finds out.” Hermione sniffed.

“Are you?” Fred asked quietly. “Are you hurt that she smashed away the proof of your valour and Gryffindor heart?”  
“I'm hurt that she lied to me.” Ron felt his lip begin to tremble.  
“Good,” Fred said, somewhat smugly, and Ron looked at him sharply.  
“Why is that good?”  
“Now, let's see if you can figure this one out instead,” Fred challenged with another annoying smile. “Think hard, Ron. Let me hear those wheels turning.”

Annoyed, Ron turned away and drifted over the familiar carpet beneath his feet. He walked to the fireplace, which was filled with picture frames of himself and Hermione, and their respective families, and of course, Harry. The girls continued to talk softly behind him and Ron tried his hardest to shut them out, feeling that one hurt was enough to have experienced.

His head began to spin and his stomach protested.

“Can I be sick when I'm dead?” he asked faintly, putting one hand out to rest it on the mantelpiece.  
“Oh, for Morgana's sake,” Fred huffed, sounding exactly like their mother. “Fine. I'll spell this one out for you. But really, next time, you've got to pull your head out of your arse.”

Ron nodded weakly, not caring.

“You've always wondered if you did the right thing in coming out to Hermione when you did, right?” Fred asked. Ron nodded again. “And you're seeing the aftermath of you doing so. She's devastated.”  
“I know,” Ron said bitterly. “I shouldn't have-”  
“Yes, you should have,” Fred said emphatically. “Because if you'd lied to her, she'd be feeling ten times worse than you're feeling at the minute. And she only smashed up your Order of Merlin. You would have been lying about your sexuality, your feelings -everything.”  
“I loved Hermione,” Ron said quietly. “And I still do. She was the first person to ever...”

He trailed off, embarrassed to say what he had been about to say in front of the brother who had mocked him over everything when they had both been alive.

“To ever love you back,” Fred finished for him, in a tone which was neither happy nor sad; simply factual.

Ron couldn't verbally answer and barely just managed a nod.

“Let's get out of here,” Fred announced. “You look like shit. Shitter than usual, I mean.”

Ron didn't bother to close his eyes for the scene to change around them, and when it stabilised, he sank down, legs giving way beneath him, onto soft grass. Familiar grass. Looking around him, Ron knew instantly where he was -the Weasley family orchard, and he looked for the Burrow through the trees, and found it.

“Home,” he breathed, drinking in the perfumed summer air.  
“Home,” Fred agreed, happily. He was stretched out on his back in the grass, looking at the leaves above them. “I miss this.”  
“It misses you,” Ron answered candidly. “We all do.”

Fred remained quiet, looking to the sky, but Ron was curious despite his hurt, and wanted to know what would come of their trip to tranquillity after the tears and pain of the last three visits.

“Why does everyone cry?” he blurted suddenly. “Why is everyone crying in the things you show me?”  
“Because you don't cry now,” Fred answered with surprising honesty; Ron had expected to have to work harder than that. “When was the last time you sat down, put your head in your hands, and bawled?”  
“Erm...” Ron struggled to remember. “Ages ago. But blokes don't cry, so what's the big deal?”  
“Snape cried,” Fred pointed out. “And so did Perce and Harry when I died, and what's more, so did you. So what's changed? Why don't you show emotion any more?”  
“There are other ways to show emotion than by crying.”  
“Like?”

Ron bit hard into his tongue as he thought.

“Exactly.” Fred's smugness was back, and Ron wished they could touch simply so he could hit him.  
“So why are we here then?” Ron asked moodily, shuffling back and leaning against the bark the tree conveniently behind him.  
“Just wait. Enjoy the peace and quiet,” Fred advised. “It won't last long. Trust me.”

_Trust me._ The words resonated in Ron's mind as he listened to the background sounds of his family's orchard. Birds were singing and fluttering as they flew from tree to tree. Something was splashing in the pond in which he, and all of his siblings, had learnt to swim. His eyes were threatening to close with the peace of it all when he heard footsteps and hurried whispers.

“Charlie...”

There was a laugh and Ron huddled back against the tree, even though he knew he could not be seen, as Charlie thundered into sight, tugging Bill by one long arm. Their boyish features and length of Bill's hair helped him to place Bill at around seventeen and Charlie at fifteen. Their clothes were summery, Charlie in a pair of jeans that had grown too short for him and had thus turned into a pair of shorts, and Bill in a faded pair of corduroys which had once been their dad's. Ron stopped paying attention to their clothes, however, when Charlie gave a hard pull on Bill's arm and swung him against a tree. Bill made a hard thud as he collided with it and swore beneath his breath.

“You love it,” Charlie teased.

Ron couldn't believe what he was seeing. One of Charlie's heavy hands, a hand which had caressed Ron's hair when he was ill, patted his shoulder when he'd done well and held him when he was upset, had worked it's way up beneath Bill's t-shirt. The other cupped his cheek. They kissed.

“What the fuck?” Ron gasped.  
“Gross, isn't it?” Fred said idly. “I _knew_ they were fucking. It was worth being dead just to get clarity on my suspicions.”  
“Shut up,” Ron threw at him. “This is just...”  
“Shameless, one might say.”

Ron continued to stare at his brothers as their kiss grew deeper and more emotional. Bill's arms wrapped around Charlie's waist and pulled him closer, forcing him to rise onto his tiptoes.

“Shameless...” Ron whispered in an echo of Fred's earlier comment.  
“Sweet Merlin's balls, he might be going to get this one!” Fred cried, as if talking to an audience.  
“Shut up,” Ron repeated, much more firmly. “They're brothers. They shouldn't be doing this.”  
“But they are.” Fred sat up with lazy ease and looked at them; an odd smile twisting his lips. “They're kinda beautiful together, don't you think?”  
“I don't know what to think!”  
“Then just let me be right.”  
“Okay.” It was easier just to let Fred be right than think about it, Ron decided.

They sat in silence, apart from a small moan of pleasure which floated over when one of Bill's hands disappeared between himself and Charlie.

“They _were_ ashamed,” Fred informed him. “Bill especially. Thought he was corrupting his little brother, but it was Charlie that pushed and pushed.”  
“Are they still at it now?” Ron asked weakly, thinking of his nieces by Bill and Charlie's secret life in Romania.  
“No. It fizzled out... as things do. But if you ever see Charlie looking at Bill's arse, he's not off with the faeries, he's proper checking out his arse.”  
“Noted,” Ron breathed. “Why aren't they ashamed here? Anyone could find them?”  
“We're all out.” Fred nodded towards the house. “Do you remember the day that we went to Auntie Muriel's for the day when you were seven, and I trapped you in her larder for four hours until you cried to be let out?”

Ron tried to repress the shudder which gave away his memory of that day.

“It's then. You're terrified, and they're snogging and rutting against a tree like whores on a lust potion.”  
“Nice.”  
“Figured it out yet?”  
“They're not ashamed,” Ron ground out. “Of what they are. Gay. Kissing other men.”  
“And...?” Fred prompted.  
“I've never felt right about it.”  
“Go Ronniekins; you're not thick after all.”  
“Shut up,” Ron repeated for a third time, and closed his eyes.

He kept them closed, unwilling to look at his brothers lost in their passion again, nor at Fred's knowing face. A sudden moan made him jump -a moan which was his own.

“Oh gods,” he whimpered, looking at the scene before him.  
“So, bonking Snape.” Fred rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Good shag?”  
“What do you think?” Ron nodded at the pair of them in bed together, watching the surprisingly graceful thrusting of his body as he pounded into Severus'.  
“What did you have to pay him to be on the bottom?” Fred asked interestedly.  
“Nothing. It was what he wanted.” Ron shrugged. “He asked me if I could top and I did.”  
“Rose to the occasion.” Fred giggled and laughed harder at a particularly desirous cry from Ron's own lips.  
“This is... horrible,” he moaned, tipping his face forward into his hands. “Why are we here now? To shame me into dying, that it?”  
“No, it's actually to show you how alive you are. Or were. Sort of.” Fred made a face.  
“What?”  
“Look at you. The colour in your skin, the pleasure in your expression. You're enjoying yourself. And I don't think you've enjoyed yourself like that for a long time, have you?”

Ron had been twenty-one when he had seduced his way into Severus' bed. Being with an older man was more exciting than he had ever imagined, especially when that older man was completely straight -or, mostly, as it turned out.

“What do you think of yourself?” Fred probed.  
“I've got a fat arse.” Ron's attempt a self-deprecating joke fell flat as Fred sighed.  
“It's a Weasley arse, freckled and plump; even you skinny gits got that. Not as nice as mine, but nice enough.”  
“And what authority are you to comment on another bloke's arse?” Ron teased.  
“Oh, I took many secrets to my grave.” Fred grinned beatifically. “But still. Look at you. Handsome. Sort of.”  
“Below average,” Ron corrected.  
“I always hoped you'd grow up to think more of yourself than that.” Fred actually sounded disappointed.  
“Sorry to not meet your expectations. Again,” Ron muttered.  
“What do you mean again?”  
“I was never what you wanted me to be,” Ron said, surprised at the venom pouring out in his tone. “I wasn't naughty enough. I wasn't fun enough. I didn't want to annoy Mum enough for you. I was a failure to you, just like I was to Perce, but for different reasons. I was a failure for everyone.”  
“Do you really think that?” Fred asked incredulously. “Really?”  
“I said it, didn't I?” Ron stared hard at the sex in front of him, hoping it would distract from the awkward conversation.

“Come on.” Fred instructed. “Up.”  
“No, I'll stay here, thanks.” Ron looked away.

He recognised Fred's threatening growl from their childhoods; a sound which had often put terror into his heart and make him do whatever it was that his brother wanted. At his age, however, it merely annoyed him. The scene spun around him as he had known it would, not being in control of the situation, and he waited to see where Fred was taking him next.

He didn't know why he had accepted the bizarre changes of situation, or why he wasn't curling in on himself, begging to wake up.

“So, this is a woman that thinks you're a failure, is it?” Fred asked hotly.

Ron slowly opened his eyes. They were in their parents' bedroom and it was dark beyond the window.

“I was so proud of him tonight, Arthur.”

Their mother's voice was soft with emotion as she removed her earrings, setting them carefully down on the dresser opposite her side of the bed.

“So was I,” their father smiled, a tired smile, but one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and lightened his face. He was sat on the bed, already changed into his nightwear, feet crossed at the ankles, an unopened book on his lap.  
“Do you ever feel bad, Arthur, that sometimes... we might not have given him what he needed?”

Ron caught sight of something on the dresser; the programme from the special Ministry dinner held for outstanding performance by employees. The night he had received his promotion Senior Auror, and the pension which would see him through to the end of his days, for being good at his job. A lump rose in Ron's throat.

“I do,” their father confessed. “But I think whatever Ron didn't know when he was little, or a teenager, he knows now. His face'll be sore the amount of times you kissed him tonight.”  
“He's my little boy.” There was something of a longing moan in their mother's voice, Ron noticed, as she sat down on the edge of the bed to remove her tights. “My last boy. The last boy I was able to calm down with the sound of my singing voice; it never worked for Ginny but worked a treat on the rest of them. The last boy I got to stand in the kitchen with me and make fairy cakes and put a dollop of cake mixture on the end of his little freckled nose.”  
“Molly, are we going to get any sleep or do you plan on reminiscing all night long?”  
“Reminiscing,” she laughed, shaking her head. “He was such a sweet one. Cuddly. Liked to be held. He still does. You feel him relax when you hug him, when he feels the warmth of your body against him. He'll make somebody a fantastic lover.”

“Mum!” Ron cried, forgetting that she couldn't hear him. Fred laughed.  
“She's right though, old Snape looked like he was enjoying you.”

Huffing, Ron folded his arms over his chest.

“See,” Fred went on, softly. “They love you. They're proud of you. We always were but you were too busy feeling hard done by to see it.”  
“So it was my fault?” Ron muttered.  
“Not always,” Fred conceded. “Sometimes we were... a little too... over the top?”

“I'm tired now,” Ron announced. “Can we stop the trip down memory lane so I can either die or go back, please?”  
“Who said you're dying?” Fred frowned.  
“Its the most logical explanation.”  
“And when have you ever paid attention to logic?” his brother laughed.  
“Fred. Be straight with me. Am I going to see any of these people again or is this like some final stab in the gut before I die?”

He expected another jokey rebuke, but Fred's expression tightened. “I told you, I can't answer that for you, Ron. You're going through this because you need to be told some home truths, and you've been told them. You're not happy as you are. You don't feel comfortable. You're carrying old baggage and if the purpose of all this is to help you chuck it in the bin, it's still your decision if you do it or not. Not mine, not anybody else's.”  
“But whose to say if I don't die I won't still feel all of this?”

Fred said nothing, clearly unable to speak. Ron felt panic rising in his mind and veins, taking hold of him and threatening to erupt at the thought of never seeing his mother again, never hugging his brothers, never having a lover again and never feeling the sheer joy of orgasm.

“I want to wake up,” he said again. “I want to go back.”  
“Why?” Fred asked.  
“Because I want to... there are things I haven't done yet.”  
“Like?”  
“Lots of things,” Ron said irritably, not wanting to get into details.  
“Like finding someone who loves you?” Fred asked. “That you love in return?”  
“Well, that's... that's on the list.”

Fred laughed and walked away from him. Ron followed him out onto the creaky old landings of the Burrow, and followed him up the stairs until they were outside Ron's room.

“You're in there...” Fred nodded at the door. “Sleeping. Harry's in there, too. Not sleeping.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because he's too busy looking at you,” Fred smiled wearily at him. “Watching you sleep. Too happy for you, and your success, that he can't drop off like you have.”

Ron swallowed.

“I think you know who you love,” Fred said firmly. “And I think you know who loves you. All of the things you've seen, the inferiority you feel... it's all linked to the man who's lying in that room, staring at you, wishing he could tell you what he feels.”  
“Why didn't he?” Ron asked, his mouth horrendously dry all of a sudden.  
“Because he's scared.”  
“Of me?”  
“Of ruining what he has with you.”

“Can I go in?” Ron asked. He needed to see it.  
“You can, but... this is it for me, your little guardian angel.” Fred wiggled his shoulders and made his wings flap. “I can't go into your room with you, that's yours. Private inner sanctum and all that bollocks. If you walk through that door, you're going alone.”  
“Will I wake up if I go through there?” Ron twigged. “Is that it? If I go through the door, I live. If I stay here, with you...”  
“You die, and stay with me.” Fred confirmed in a soft, sad voice. “And you won't see me again, if you go.”

That thought near-on tore Ron's chest apart.

“I don't know what I want.”  
“Yes you do.”  
“Do not,” Ron argued.  
“Do too.”  
“Do not.”  
“Do too.”  
“Do not.”  
“Do not.”  
“Do too!”  
“Ha!” Fred cried triumphantly. “You know, ickle Ronniekins. You're thirty-one today. You're a grown man and you know your mind and you know what you feel.”

Ron looked down at his feet. “Why is it you? Why are you herding me around my history and making me feel small about it?”

Fred huffed. “You've so missed the point of this whole exercise, Ron, I had a hot date tonight, I'll have you know, but you decided to go and get trounced by a cutting curse and lost a load of blood and now we're both here, you're half dead and I'm missing dessert.”  
“Sorry to have been such an inconvenience.” Ron rolled his eyes.  
“Go home,” Fred said simply. “And for Merlin's sake, learn something from all this.”

Ron turned to face the door, staring at the messy childlike scrawl of the nameplate.

“Will you do something for me, Ron?”  
“Hmm?”  
“Can you give George something for me?”

Out of all their time together, George had not been mentioned, once. Ron thought that the tightness in Fred's voice was probably the reason why.

“Anything.”  
“A punch in the face,” Fred said coolly. “He needs to live his life. He's thirty-three.”  
“Anything else?”  
“Some of the others sent messages...”  
“Others?” Ron whipped around, frowning.  
“People who die in battle like we did... the road afterwards is no easier than the road leading to our deaths.”  
“That's poetic, for you.”  
“I know. I am a master of many talents.” Fred winked at him. It shot straight to Ron's heart and clenched it. “Remus asked me, that if you went back... that you could check in on Teddy for them and give him a kiss.”  
“Teddy's thirteen, doubt he'd want me to give him a kiss to be honest. Plus he's a goth now, apparently, and that's so not cool for a goth to get kissed by their uncle.”  
“Well Tonks also said that you're not allowed to let him get his lip pierced until he's seventeen.”  
“I'll pass it on,” Ron breathed, taken by the absurdity of their situation.

“Time for you to go. If you don't now, it'll be too late.” Fred nodded towards the door and Ron turned to face it again.  
“Okay. Here I go.”

He paused, looking over his shoulder. Fred was gone, and he was alone on the landing. Something burst inside of him and the pain which he had been holding back since his brother's first appearance drowned him, flooding his veins and bloating his organs. He felt, for the first time like he was actually dying.

“Go.” The whisper was light, blowing in a gentle breeze against his ear.

Trusting the voice, Ron reached for the door handle, and pulled it open.

* * *

His first thought was to groan, but he tried and his throat burned. It didn't merely ache, it burned painfully, as if fire were tearing at the flesh there, stripping it away from the outer walls of his flesh. Then he felt wet warmth.

_You're crying._

If he could have, he would have laughed at that. He wanted to ask aloud if Fred was proud of him, for allowing his pain to get to him so badly that he could cry without control, without shame. When he opened his eyes, the room was blurry through the tears, which took four tries to be blinked away so that he could even see the ceiling. It was vaulted and made of honey coloured stone.

_St Mungo's._

He looked left and right; his bedside was deserted. In fact, he seemed to be the only person in the room full stop. He was glad of the fact, rather than insulted. To his left there was a chair with someone's coat on it. There was a hand bag on the table over the end of his bed. There was an arse print in the covers by his right thigh. People had been there with him, caring for him, waiting for him to wake up.

Slowly, with too many grunts of pain, Ron managed to lever himself up slightly to ease the tension at the base of his spine. His arms ached as they stretched out behind him and his head began an ungainly thump. He licked his lips and found them soft and sweet-tasting.

Someone had been applying lip balm to hydrate them.

The thought made more tears fall and he sniffed hard, trying to gain control of himself before someone came back in and saw him in such a mess.

_You were meant to have learnt._

A voice in his head spoke to him which was not his own, and Ron froze. He thought he heard laughing.

_I'm going, honest. But please, Ron. Learn from what you saw. Never forget it. Please._

Fred never said please about anything, Ron reasoned. He should probably listen to him and grant his request for that alone.

“Harry, I'm putting my foot down. You need rest. Go home and sleep. One of us will fetch you if he wakes up.”  
“And if he dies.” Ron had never heard Harry's voice so sullen.

He didn't have time to even wipe his face before the door to his room swung open, and he was on full display.

“Oh my god.”

Harry's faint whisper was largely overshadowed by his mother's shriek of joy. One of his brothers -Ron was too tired to tell which- swore with relief. They all converged at him at once, hurting his sore body as they were unable to contain their happiness. Ron let them have it; his body was nothing to him, but their emotion was everything, after all he had seen.

It took him a while to realise that someone was holding on tight to his hand. He looked down and saw tanned, manly fingers mingled with his own: Harry. He looked up at him, shocked by the lilac bruises beneath his friend's eyes, which were rimmed red from tiredness.

Ron opened his mouth to speak and at once they reprimanded him. It made his head ache.

“Don't speak,” his mother instructed. “Your throat was badly damaged by the spell and needs complete rest.”  
“We'll explain what happened,” Harry promised softly. “A bit later.”

Ron tried to nod and winced.

“I'll go and tell everyone the good news.”

It was George, Ron realised, looking at his retreating back. His mouth fell open to speak, to pass on Fred's message, before he remembered that he couldn't. Frustrated, he hit the bed next to him with his fist.

“I know it's frustrating.” His mother's warm hand smoothed the hair from his brow. “I know it is, Ron. But please. We came so close to losing you.”

Her eyes flooded with moisture and she turned, hurrying from the room, leaving him alone with Harry. Ron looked at him. They were still holding hands. There were so many things he wanted to say, to explain where he had been and what he had learnt, but fate was laughing at him.

Ron did the only thing he could; he lifted Harry's hand to his lips and kissed it softly -once, twice, a third time. He inhaled from his skin. He held it tighter in his fingers. He hoped Harry understood.

“Fuck.”

Harry understood. Ron was confident of that. He kissed his hand again, revelling in the freeness of it, the ease at which he could pucker his lips and kiss the hand of a man he had never thought to kiss.

Fred had somehow known how he felt about Harry when Ron himself did not. He thought of the ridiculous angel wings and couldn't repress a smile. He wanted to laugh but knew he couldn't.

“What're you smiling about?” Harry asked quietly. “You're seriously injured. Your heart stopped twice and they managed to save you. You're going to be unwell for a long time.”  
“Happy birthday to me,” Ron scratched out, before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to talk.  
“Happy birthday to you,” Harry repeated.

Ron caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye; a white feather was perched on the edge of his mattress, just about to tumble to the floor. He reached out with his free hand and picked it up. It was soft between his fingers. Without thought, he passed it over to Harry and insisted that he take it.

“Keep it,” he gasped. “Please.”

Harry nodded uncertainly, and held the feather preciously between his fingers.

“You'll explain to me later?” he implored, looking at Ron with wide eyes.

Ron shook his head. Harry would never believe him if he tried.

“You're going to have to explain to me.”

Ron shook his head again, even though it made him feel dizzy.

“I don't understand.”

Harry dropped his hand and slumped backwards in his chair. Ron felt the loss quicker than he could have imagined when Harry's warm palm slid from his grip. He curled his fingers and tried to entice the hand back. When it didn't come, he felt pressure building in his throat.

Harry put his fingers behind his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

“I'm tired, Ron.”  
He nodded and mouthed, “I know.”  
“You go and die on me and then when you wake up you're kissing my hand and looking at me like that.”

Ron froze; had Fred been wrong? Had he been playing one last cruel practical joke from beyond the grave to make Ron suffer? Did Harry not feel for him at all beyond the bounds of friendship? His stomach began to churn.

“You haven't looked at me in about ten years,” Harry whispered. “Not really. Not at all. Never like that.”  
“I-”  
“Don't talk,” Harry snapped at him. “Just shut up.”

Ron did so, but only on account of the fact that he was unable to properly speak and wouldn't have known what to say if he could. Harry was surveying him with hurt, wary eyes.

_It's too late._

Ron drew a breath and choked at the burning in his throat.

“Now isn't the time... we'll talk later.”

Ron reached out with his hand, insisting that Harry take it. He begged with his eyes.

“I've waited for a long time for you to look at me like that.”  
“I didn't know,” Ron rasped. “I didn't see it. I didn't-”  
“Shh.”

Harry shushed him and leant forward. Ron held his breath as his hand was captured again, and Harry kissed his knuckles.

“Get well,” Harry urged, with wide eyes. “And then you can tell me what the fuck happened to make you wake up and see me.”

_-fin-_   



End file.
